Causes

Deadly Doses USA

Animal Justice Project USA has uncovered an epidemic of gross government spending on recreational drug experiments on animals as part of the “Deadly Doses: A Legal Low” campaign. The experiments in this report are not only of no value to human health, but they have also led (and continue to lead) to countless animals suffering and dying.

Non-human primates, rabbits, rats, mice and fish were the most common animals used, however the actual number is impossible to calculate as many of the papers studied do not state the actual number of animals involved.

Shockingly, rats, mice, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish are not regulated in the USA under the Animal Welfare Act, which means that in addition to it being legal for them to remain uncounted, anything can be done to them inside the laboratories.

Animals are subjected to forced addiction, and injections into their brains and faces. They are dipped in hot water, subjected to electric shocks, and have clamps put on their sciatic nerves and paws to create constant chronic pain. They are put on hot plates, starved, and isolated in an endless exercise in suffering.

These cruel and abusive experiments reveal little about, and apparently have no substantial impact on, human drug addiction. Given that motivational behavior in humans towards the use of recreational drugs is entirely different to that of an animal in a laboratory. Human addiction is a combination of factors, be they culturally motivated or due to socio-economic factors. What’s more, the differences between, for example, a mouse and a human are simply too great, and include extremely obvious differences in anatomy, physiology and behaviour to have any relevance to human addiction.

Non-human primates addicted to methamphetamine, forced into restraint jackets and hooked up to stainless steel injection probes which are surgically implanted into their brains. Cocaine injected into the brains of rhesus macaques. Female rats addicted to MDMA (Ecstasy) and Mephedrone (MCAT, drone, bubbles). Mice with magnets cemented to their skulls. LSD injected into the brains of rabbits.

Some of these experiments have been going on for 20 to 30 years, and have been duplicated many times, not only in multiple institutions in the United States, but also elsewhere such as theDeadly Dose experiments in the UK exposed in the Spring of 2015 by Animal Justice Project.

Deadly Dollars: Here is a snapshot of the financial cost of these Deadly Doses experiments.

A Special Report by Animal Justice Project USA

Animal Justice Project examined 95 protocols from 21 prestigious institutions including: USC, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Scripps, Caltech, Yale, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Minnesota, Drexel University College of Medicine, University of Mississippi, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, University of Florida, University of Texas Health Science Center, University of Incarnate Word, Arizona State University, and University of North Georgia.

Thousands of animals suffer, and millions of taxpayers’ dollars spent.

The researchers who benefit from government grants to further their careers are subject to no oversight to produce actual results. The experiments are used to produce studies that can be published and keep these people safely employed at the taxpayers’ expense.

#REACT and join our campaign to end this scientific fraud!

If you are based in the United States, urge your representative in congress to call for an investigation into the National Institute of Health (NIH) and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) – the main funding body of recreational drug experiments on animals. Click here to find your congress person’s contact details and copy and paste the sample letter below.

If you are based elsewhere, and believe that animals shouldn’t be used for any experiments involving recreational drugs, why not sign our Pledge! Click and pledge here.

Sample letter:

Dear .. ,

It has recently come to my attention by the newly-formed Animal Justice Project USA that the National Institute of Health and the National Institute of Drug Abuse is providing funding in excess for recreational drug experiments on animals. Some of these experiments have been funded to the tune of millions of taxpayer’s dollars for up to 30 years, with zero benefit to humans suffering drug addiction.

Dozens of prestigious universities are involved in what can only be described as a fleecing of the citizens of the United States in ridiculous experiments such as researchers injecting methamphetamine into rabbits brains to determine whether it induces eye blinks and twitching. This experiment alone has cost us approximately $6,584,869 and there are hundreds more futile and costly animal experiments being carried out in this area of research. Not only is this a waste of money but also the experiments are extremely invasive and cruel. Shockingly, the majority of animals used in recreational drugs research are not even protected by the Animal Welfare Act, yet are regularly subjected to painful, unregulated procedures.

Animal Justice Project has revealed that universities such as UCLA, Yale, Stanford, Arizona State University, University of North Georgia, USC, UC Berkeley, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Minnesota, Drexel University College of Medicine, University of Mississippi, University of Florida, University of Texas Health Science Center, University of Incarnate Word, and University of North Georgia are carrying out this research, to name a few.

I urge that you, during this time of government cost-cutting and economic hardship, investigate this obscene expenditure, and terminate government-funded recreational drug experiments on animals as a matter of urgency. The tide of both scientific and public opinion is rapidly changing with regards to this type of futile and distasteful animal research. In New Zealand, animal experiments in recreational drugs studies are already banned, and in the UK, experiments of this nature are widely condemned. Public money would be better spent instead on human volunteer studies investigating the short- and long-term effects of drug addiction, on education, and providing those in need of assistance with therapy and rehabilitation.

Yours sincerely,

Animal Justice Project

Animal Justice Project is a dynamic and proactive international animal rights organisation.